Various Cloth pieces

The title of this post is the description that the removal men put on my fabric stash! I thought that was a tad dismissive of the hours of Internet shopping not to say lots of ££'s involved in acquiring the various cloth pieces. We had to put a monetary value on my stash for the insurance and I probably underestimated the figure. Well, I wasn't too keen on my husband knowing just how much money that box represented :)

Said stash is now perched on top of numerous pieces of furniture and behind several boxes in a storage unit, I have no idea when I will see it again :(


We left Riga in this

which, fortunately, had changed to this by the time we reached Stockholm

The bit in between was not quite as calm as we had anticipated! Fortunately our North Sea crossing a couple of days later was.


Not surprisingly, with our move at the end of the month, October was not an especially productive month for me. I did though manage to keep up-to-date (just!) with my Bee blocks

and my swaps and Blog Hops and fitted in a couple of Halloween projects too.

So it could have been worse!

Here's hoping for a more productive November.

Off to catch up now on all the posts I have missed whilst on my travels.

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day and

Tiny Dancers, Textiles and Travels

Last weekend we visited a Coin and Collectors Fair in Riga.

The Fair is held monthly in a school and is a sometimes strange mix of items. The majority of the stalls sell coins and stamps, but then you get two stalls together selling such odd bedfellows as military equipment and china figurines. The Fair takes over the whole school building so there are people setting up their stalls on the stairs as well as lots of trading going on in the entrance to the building.

Plenty of inspiration here for jewellery, but I was particularly taken with these tiny dancers

Aren't they cute? A couple of them might just have found their way into my hands in exchange for some Lats!

Walking around Riga Old Town at the weekend I discovered a poster for an exhibition by the Latvian Textile Artists Association that was taking place in a beautiful old church. Needless to say I hotfooted it straight there, as it was already the last day of the exhibition. As I had gone out without my camera I press-ganged my husband's camera, but it was a poor substitute. On leaving, however, I discovered that the exhibition had another day to run so I was straight back there the next day and this time my camera came too.

I have entered Rikka's Ring your Neck scarf challenge so was looking for inspiration. This took my eye

and in close-up

I just wanted to stroke it but managed to refrain!

These were also inspiring

The artist entitled this piece Drops of Emotion.

This, however, was my favourite

It is entitled My favourite scarecrow

and when I looked at the title label I discovered that it is by a textile artist called Edite Pauls-Vignere, whose work I have seen exhibited several times before. Every single time I have visited an exhibition where this artist is exhibited, without realising I have always picked one of her pieces as my favourite. If only I had the bank balance to match my taste!

When you read this the packers will have arrived and I shall be watching my sewing equipment disappear into the back of a large van, to be seen again who knows when. To keep my mind off of this state of affairs I have been busy cutting out fabric for more Saaremaa Star blocks for the journey home.

There hasn't been much progress on the WIP list this week but I guess that is not unexpected :)

Ongoing

• 7 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM ( 3 blocks behind schedule)
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 9/24 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
• Teatime quilt pieced, backed and basted 
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 14 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (2 months behind schedule) 
• 12 Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks completed (on schedule)
• 4 Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (on schedule just!)

Waiting

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Holiday Cushion Blog Hop
• Hoop-la-la swap  
• Ring your Neck scarf challenge

Hope you have been having a productive week.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday

Bees and Black Cats

The absence of Zakka SAL-related projects in the last couple of months might have led you to believe that I had well and truly fallen off that bandwagon. I would have been inclined to agree with you, until I saw this week's project - the Garland message board. Having already bought dinky pegs with this project in mind and seeing reports from Fiona  and Wendy that it would only take a couple of hours of my time, it seemed a shame not to have a go!

The original project was designed as a sort of shopping list organiser, but my shopping lists are generally way too long to be contained by a few pegs! So I tweaked the board a little to have the bunting spell out a welcome message.

Our son and daughter-in-law are coming out to visit tomorrow, so they have the honour of being the first names attached.

And here it is hanging in the guest room ready for their visit.

The reports were true, it is a really quick project and would, I think, be a nice gift for a new house or baby maybe with the appropriate letters in the bunting. I have missed my Zakka moments (although I haven't missed checking for all the mistakes in the book!), so it was nice to get back into that groove. This is the second last project in the book so being back in the groove will be a short-lived experience. This is the 9th of 24 projects from the book that I have completed, and there are still a couple that I will get around to it at some stage. I don't think I have ever completed that many projects from a single book before, so although I haven't managed all of the projects the SAL has definitely been worth it for me, in terms of getting value out of my book purchase. At times the project a week schedule has been impossible to stick to, but I would definitely join another book SAL in the future, what about you?


Asides from Zakkaing ( the spell checker does not like my new word!) I have also been sewing up and sending Bee blocks before we take on the role of tour guide for our son and daughter-in-law. First up, the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee block colour for September is red, and with my new colour-coded, zip lock scrap system (thanks all for the suggestion!) sorting out the scraps for each block takes no time.

The theme for the Star of Africa Bee block this month was animals. Jen intends to put the blocks together as a book for her children to use for animal spotting on trips to the zoo. My block is not of an exotic animal, however, although there are plenty of those mentioned in the Bee discussions, instead I have produced for Jen a humble Black Cat.

Not just any Black Cat though, the Black Cat of the house of the same name in Riga Old Town. The legend goes that a wealthy merchant sought to join the Great Guild of Riga and was rejected by the worthy citizens. Being a wealthy merchant though, the man (surprise, surprise!) did not take kindly to this rejection and as his house was directly opposite the Great Guild hall, took an unusual form of revenge for the snub. He placed a statue of a Black Cat on top of the tower nearest the Guild Hall, with the rear of the Cat facing the Hall. You can imagine the reaction of the worthy citizens! Several years and a lawsuit later the wealthy merchant was admitted to the Guild and the Black Cat statue was turned to provide a more fitting view for the Guild members!

And here it is! You can see why the view from the back might have upset the worthy citizens :)

Linking up to TGIFF and BOM's away

Hope you all have a great weekend.  

Flea Market Finds

We visited the biannual Flea Market again at the weekend and this time we didn't have to leap over puddles or avoid large swathes of mud to see the stalls. Although we would have been able to see these items without any problem, mud and puddles or not!

Not really your average Sunday morning purchase.

Last time we visited there was a tank for sale but it wasn't there this time, presumably it had been sold in the meantime. The parking charges would be astronomical I would have thought, but maybe if you are driving a tank you don't need to worry about parking charges :)

I was momentarily tempted by these

Think how crisp my seams would be, but then I thought of my arms and thought better of it. I was even more tempted by this

Isn't it a beauty and only 10Ls, which is about £14? I took this photo intending to come back for it later but then my heart was stolen by this instead.

It is a working model, and although I have no idea what I will do with it, I am already envisioning many happy hours in the winter cleaning and polishing, well it will be a form of housework. It will certainly be handy in a power cut too! Although it is not exactly lightweight so my arms may get that workout after all.

Hope you have had a good weekend too.

Time for tea

This week I have been enjoying working on want to rather than need to projects. So the pressure has been off me, which is just as well as the husband has had a really pressured week and there in only room in the household for one person under pressure at a time!

Today I have finished the top of my afternoon tea quilt that I started many moons ago, and has been gathering dust wrapped up in a map roll on top of the wardrobe ever since. As the quilt was intended to make use of an embroidered panel there was no pattern for the top, so I had drafted out the cutting and sewing measurements myself. Although I knew maths was never a strong point of mine, until today I hadn't realised quite how bad I was! According to my calculations I needed 28 6.5" blocks for the second border on the quilt, so I duly cut and pieced 24 Friendship Star blocks with the intention of making 4 different blocks for the corners. When I laid out the quilt centre and pieced Star blocks I discovered that my calculations had been way out, instead of needing 28 blocks in fact I only needed 20! So out with the seam ripper to take off the extra 2 blocks on 2 strips.

The dodgy maths mean though that I have 4 Friendship Star blocks ready to make up into a matching cushion, so it wasn't all bad.

I would love to be a bit more adventurous with the quilting on this lap quilt and ideally, quilt some form of teacup in the striped border and on the linen centre, but that may just be a bit over-ambitious as I have never even tried free-motion quilting! All tips will be much appreciated.

Last weekend there was a large pan-Baltic Folklore festival in Riga, part of which was a Craft Fair and open-air concerts in one of the City parks. I was delighted to see these girls with their flower headdresses working on their looms and thought you might like to see them too.

And just to prove that all you need is attitude to carry off the flower wreath look!

Have a great weekend.



Linking here and here

High Rollers and Fashionistas

Yesterday the Rolls Royce Ghost Club from the UK came to town as part of their Nordic and Baltic tour. Fortunately it was a glorious day when they pulled up in formation outside Riga City Hall. It was very funny to see so many grown men unashamedly drooling! Here's a flavour of what they were drooling over!

And

This little lady attracted the most attention!

Today is the last day for submitting entries to Sew Sweetness' Purse Palooza, so true to form I swithered about whether to make the Fashionista bag from Lisa Lam's Bag-Making Bible, which is on my 12 WIP's in 2012 list, in time to submit. Yesterday I decided to go for it. Nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind!

I have already made two of these bags, both of which I gave to my daughter-in-law, so had decided that the next one was definitely for me. I had even bought the perfect bright pink wool fabric for the bag a long time ago on a trip to Tallinn, so I have had very little excuse not to have it completed before now.

Once I started making the bag I remembered why I had been putting it off for so long! The first step in making the bag is to construct both sets of handles and although the shoulder length handle with the chain is fairly straightforward to sew, getting the chain cut and attached is another story. The instructions tell you to cut the chain to the desired length, an action I have found impossible to do on my own in the past. Fortunately, our local ironmongers at home has a very willing owner who is happy to cut my chains with his professional-looking wire cutters as often as I need, so I have gathered a store of them for just such an occasion. The instructions also tell you to open the chain links to attach them to the D-rings on the end of the strap, another action I found impossible to do, so my solution was to attach a split ring to the end of the chain, which then attaches to the D-ring.

The short handle provides a whole different set of problems. To attach the bolt hook to the end of the piped handle you need to sew 8 layers of fabric whilst trying to avoid hitting the top of the bolt hook with your machine needle, not for the faint-hearted that is for sure! It took several attempts is all I am admitting to :)

Actually once the handles are sorted, the rest of the bag is fairly straightforward, even fitting the twist-turn lock and inserting a zipped inner pocket is pain-free compared to grappling with 8 layers of fabric. Although I did need to grit my teeth, cross my fingers and hope for the best when cutting into my already sewn bag flap to attach the front part of the lock and then again to fit the eyelets for the short handle.

Finishing this bag also means that I can shift another project off of my waiting list and on to the completed list, which is very nice, and it is this month's finish for 12 WIP's in 2012!

So here is how my list is looking now

Completed projects

• Shades of Green, Fleur Bleu, Checkered Heart, Orange and Reindeer cushions
• Orphan Block needle roll, Pieced Arc Tea towel, Purse and Padded Hangers Tutorial
• Sunflower and Sew Happy QAL quilt
• Play mini-quilt challenge quilt 
• Patchwork Block, Dragon and Fashionista Bags

Ongoing

• 6 blocks of In Color Order HST BOM 
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 8 Zakka-style SAL projects completed
• First border of teatime quilt completed
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 12 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (on schedule)  
• Yellow rainbow cushion waiting to be appliqued 
• In the Bag Ugly Fabric challenge fabrics arrived waiting for inspiration!
• 4 Summer Quilt Bee blocks completed
• 1 Star of Africa Bee block completed

Waiting

• Indigo and violet rainbow cushions
• Last block of Sampler quilt
• Amy Butler bag
• Christmas mini quilts

There is a bit of a logjam in that ongoing list I think, will have to work on that soon.

Tomorrow's posts in the Let's get Acquainted Blog Hop are from

July 12

    Rebecca from Sew Festive Handmade 

    Marti from 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks

Rebecca has been posting tutorials this month for her Christmas in July series, so I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with tomorrow and Marti has a giveaway running on her blog at the moment, so both are definitely worth checking out. 

Linking up to  Purse Palooza , Sunday Showcase,  WIP Wednesday  and We did it Wednesday. 

 

From Antiques to Zakka

Having polished off the backlog in my BOM's this week was also a chance to cross off at least some of my outstanding projects in the Zakka-style SAL. In my enthusiasm I had visions of completing at least 3 of my outstanding projects but, alas, the pesky Itty Bitty magnets put a spanner in those works! Who would have thought that such tiny little things could be such trouble, and I was only attempting three of them not the full six that are in the book?

Wendy did warn me that whilst the piecing was fairly straightforward, if rather hard on the eyes, the real fun came with the last step to turn in and stitch closed the opening left for inserting the magnets, and so it proved. I can understand the desire to have nice, handmade things around you and it does lift the spirits to see patchwork every time I go to the fridge, but I am seriously doubting whether the trouble involved is worth the end result. My colourful peg fridge magnets are just as cheering and a lot less trouble. The problem lies with the tiny (to me at any rate) 1/8th" seam that is available to work with when trying to turn the last edge under, you are only talking about a few threads between you and a frayed edge - madness! I know that some quilters enjoy working on a miniature scale and produce the most breathtaking work, but having just attempted these magnets I am beginning to doubt their sanity :) Let's just say that I will not be attempting any miniature quilts anytime soon.

The trouble did not end when the seams were finally, if rather messily, tamed as despite having the same number of magnetic layers one of the magnets did not live up to its name and refused to stay put on the fridge door. I had, I thought, tested them all before sewing but I am now thinking that I might have put the sheets in the wrong way round on this one magnet, needless to say ripping out the seam to turn the magnet round was not even considered as an option! Instead, I attached another piece of the magnetic sheet to the back of the magnet and it now sticks beautifully.

Fortunately the second of my catch-up Zakka-style projects was much more enjoyable. When we were in Tallinn last week I bought some blue linen to make the Cloud Mug Rug from the book. I had already received the perfect umbrella fabric for the backing in Hilacha's Novelty and Solid's Layer Cake Swap. The mug rug project particularly appealed as it involved needle-turn applique, which was a new technique for me and also some hand and machine embroidery.

As it turned out I used hand embroidery for both the embroidered sections. The needle-turn applique was quite fiddly to do, but I am glad that I have had a chance to at least have a go at it. Indeed I found the whole applique and embroidery so relaxing to do that I have cut out linen squares for a whole set of mug rugs, which I am hoping to base on the weather symbols in a local newspaper. The third project I had planned, the organiser, I will hopefully get around to over the weekend.

I thought you might like to see another market from Latvia. Last weekend we visited a bi-annual Flea Market some distance outside Riga that one of my husband's colleagues had told him about. The stalls ranged from carefully laid-out antiques and paintings to rugs on the ground with a motley selection of household goods. I had wondered whilst we were walking to the venue why most of the other visitors seemed to be male, but wondered no longer when I saw the stalls below!

The variety of car and motorbike parts available in various states was fascinating to see, as was the strange assortment of purchases being carried out of the market. The men didn't have it all their own way though as these beauties were also for sale

It certainly made me appreciate the speed and power of my modern Singer machine if not the rather bland looks compared to these ornate machines :)

Linking up to TGIFF

Shopping, stitching and sighing!

I realised when looking at my photos that the only photos I have shared of the markets here were of the fish market. Now, whilst we like fish we do buy other things at the market, so this weekend on our weekly shopping trip and walk back through the Old Town I took some photos to give you an idea of the shopping opportunities in Riga!

Now that Spring has (finally) arrived many of the fruit and veg stallholders have moved outside, so the area around the Market pavilions is a riot of colour. Later in the summer small stalls will be set up with people offering produce from their gardens and allotments. Last year we particularly enjoyed the tiny wild strawberries for sale on these stalls, so we are looking forward to trying more of them this summer. The time for fur hats has, thankfully, passed so the ones you see are aimed at tourists, who were out in force this weekend, so the fur lady and her neighbours selling knitted socks and gloves and amber jewellery will have been happy. The handicraft ladies ply their wares all year round so must be a very hardy bunch!

Although it felt like I spent a lot of time sewing over the weekend I don't seem to have much to show for it. I did, however, get last week's project from the Zakka-style SAL completed.

I have been hoarding the fabric and ribbon for a while so it was nice to finally find a use for them. I didn't have the right stuffing so made do with leftover wadding, so it is a bit lumpier than I would have liked. At least, though, it is finished which is more than can be said for the first project in the book, the zig-zag style tote. Having spent what seems like all week on this tote I am still some way from finishing and the photo below shows you why!

When I joined the zig-zag panel to the plain side panels to make up the front of the tote I lost my points on the edges! I was tempted, as you can see, to ignore this and make up the bag anyway, but have decided that this is all character building so am steeling myself to start all over on the zig-zags. I have also discovered (thanks Kirsty QP) that I am not the only one to have trouble with this project, so I don't feel quite so bad :) Check out Finding Fifth's  blog if you are struggling too.

As it is nearly the end of the month I am trying to catch up on my BOM's before I get behind again, so spent again what seemed like many hours hand-piecing hexagons for the Craftsy BOM for April. One down, one to go, hope there is something good on TV this week so that I can get stuck into the second block.

I only realised as I was sewing the last one down that I had intended to have both of the half-hexagons with the blue side on the white background. At 11.00p.m it was definitely not going to be changed!

When we  were in Tallinn a few weeks ago I found a copy of the craft magazine Mollie Makes so naturally snapped it up. The magazine had a pattern for a Crochet Flower Brooch, which caught my eye as it seemed reasonably straightforward for a non-crocheter. However, despite several attempts I have to confess to coming unstuck.

I am hoping the crochet experts amongst you can explain what the following instruction means (or point me in the direction of a good tutorial) as I cannot get my head around it. The pattern says "With RS of the work facing, work in a spiral towards the centre of the base. Work into both loops of Round 4, then into the unused loops of rounds 3, 2 and then 1 of the spiral base, until you have reached the very centre." Sorry, I have no idea what this means!!

We are heading off on a trip next weekend so I was hoping to take the crochet along to do on the plane,  hopefully someone will be able to help me out.

Hope your weekend was more productive than mine.

Linking up to BOM's away here , Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday here and Manic Monday here

Paper and Padlocks

It feels like I have spent the weekend sewing on paper and then ripping it off! It means though that I am back on track with the Littlest Thistle's FPPFTT and NY Beauty QAL, thank goodness for that :) So, I can contemplate the next two blocks in the series' without panic, well that is the theory anyway. The NY Beauty blocks take me ages to do, starting with agonising over which fabric should go where, so I am glad that we are going at the rate of one block a week and I greatly admire the fellow NY Beauty blockers who are whipping up 4 of each block every week! Check out their blocks  here

 

I must be learning something in this QAL as the inner arch on this block, with only 9 pieces to contend with felt like a doddle to do and three weeks ago the same pattern was really daunting!  There were even more curved seams to contend with in this block, so I paid a lot more attention to my seam allowances and with only a bit of unpicking the block came out at the right size :)

Like several people in this QAL I am not really sure what I am going to do with the blocks when they are all finished. There are some fabulous cushions being made by participants who are making 4 of each block, and that is something I may think about, but for now I will just keep plodding along with 1 block a week and see what inspires me at the end of the QAL.

For Katy's FPPFTT block this week we were mastering "larger scale complex sectional blocks" apparently, and I took the opportunity to use up scraps left over from the Sew Happy QAL. I suspect it is down to my Scottish heritage but I have a bad habit of trying to make scraps fit when they are really not big enough, so I ended up with seam allowances that amounted to a couple of threads in one or two places! I really will have to learn to be more generous with my fabric pieces :) The finished square will eventually (hopefully in the next two weeks!) end up as a cushion and will go to my son and his wife along with the Circle of Geese block that will also become a cushion. They will then have a cushion each to snuggle under the quilt with, although from what I saw of the weather forecast for the UK last weekend, they won't be needing quilts at the moment.

It must be officially Spring here as the Laime Clock has had its winter woollies removed! So you can see it in all its natural glory.

And just in case you thought that I spent all of my weekend tied to the sewing machine or ripping out paper, I also visited the Fish Market

and walked through the park bordering Riga Old Town

It is a tradition here that when couples get married they fasten a lock to the bridge and throw away the key to symbolise that they will be locked together in marriage for ever. As you can see it is a popular tradition.

As you can also see the locks are engraved with the name (or initials) of the couple and the date of their wedding.

Looking forward to seeing the results of your weekends too.

Linking up to Manic Monday, Sew Modern Monday , BOM's away and Fabric Tuesday.